First, I should state that I am on a trial right now. I am operationg it on Lion 10.7.2 on my imac. So I have a couple questions.

First, does APP actually import material, or just reference the file location?

Now on to the exacts. I can easily find my camera files in the media window, and import them. But, since they only reference the files on the camera, the USB interface makes things quite slow. So, it seems logical to move the files onto my thunderbolt drive for speed. The problem is than the MXF files from the canon XF100 get broken down into 5 minute chunks. So, if I have an hour long interview, I have 12 files to sort through. Since I am deciding between this and AVID, workflow with my camera's files is pretty important. Canon makes a utility for FCPX (which I'm using now) and AVID. That alows the files to be imported from the camera as one clip. But, with FCPX, it actually imports, it doesn't just reference. So, is there a way that I can either have APP bring in the entire clip as one, or atleast combine the clips in my sources to make one file. It is also possible that this is one area that is not fully operative with the trial version. I really like the setup with APP, and the bundle you can get with it. But if it comes down to it not cooperating with my video files, then I may have to stay with FCPX, or try avid (which has major MAC compatibility issues, meaning I probably buty a new PC as well)

The best workflow would in my oppinion be to first copy the whole content of your memory card to your media harddrive, since premiere "only" makes a reference to the placement of the files, as you write.

After that go to Premiere and find the "Media Browser".

Navigate inside there to the "content" folder you just copied, and you will see a list of the actual clips you recorded, and not the 5 min. chunks, as you describe the actual files on the card. Premiere automaticly reads the metadata from the card, and knows how many "chunks" there is in each clip.

To get an import with as little or no hazzle as possible, its essential that you copy the whole content of your memory card onto the harddrive.

Chose the clips you want to import, mark them, right click and chose import.

Thanks for responding Ulf. But, that unfortanly doesn't fix the issue. The breakdown happens as soon as I take the files off of the card, not when importing. So for example a clip originally titled "AA0177" on the camera becomes a folder with the same name of "AA0177". In that folder (that is in the contents folder) there are files caled "AA017701, AA017702..etc". So, that is what APP imports, each of these sub-files.In the actual case of "AA0177" there are 11 video files as well as some container files.

It shows them as seperate files even when you use media browser? That isn't normal behavior for Premiere, generally speaking when you copy over the entire folder structure from the camera/memory card and then use Premiere's media browser (not the regular import methods) it will join the clips together for you.

Even though you're seeing the breakdown after you take them off the card/camera if you use Premiere's Media browser to import them they SHOULD appear as a entire clip again istead of being seperate. Even though on your system they will still technically not be one clip, when you pull them into your project via media browser they will appear like one.

You just need to be sure you're looking at them with the Premiere media browser

and not the regular premiere pro file>import method or dragging and dropping in the bin or hitting ctrl+i on pc.

Because if you do any of the last three ways I mention it will appear as seperate clips but if you use media

That is correct. I go to the media browser, and I click on the "contents" folder I dragged from the card in the camera. Inside that folder are all the clips as FOLDERS. Inside THOSE folders are the broken up video files. This is a canon issue more than a APP issue. The same thing happened with FCPX before Canon came out with a FCPX import utility. The only difference is that in FCPX I could connect the clips together in my source window. So, I could highlight the 11 or so video clips and right click to select "new compound clip" and it would tie them together for me. With APP it seems the only way I see the video file as a whole is through the camera. And, as I said working with USB makes for slow editing. If I drop the clips on the timeline in APP and export it, or even use the Sequence as a source, I lose the time code. Unless there is a way to set the time code of the sequence to correspond to the first clip in it.

All we ever do is use the Mac Finder (or Windows Exploerer when copying to Windows) to copy the card contents (all of them) to a folder on the HDD, then use Premiere Pro Media Manager to import them to the bins.

It works. Every time. I've never had a failure from what must be 750+ card transfers from both XF100 and XF300 cameras.

So, I recorded screen while atempting to try again. And it worked. The secret vas to change my media browser view to Canon XF instead of files. Here is the video anyway for anyone else who comes along with this problem.

So, I recorded screen while atempting to try again. And it worked. The secret vas to change my media browser view to Canon XF instead of files. Here is the video anyway for anyone else who comes along with this problem.